We start with these core components which address specific needs, illnesses or conditions.
As client's individual goals become more clear, the program will continue to adjust and adapt to ensure that each person receives the maximum benefit from the program. Whether you are in the Residential Program, Transitional Living Program, or Intensive Outpatient Program we will work together to find your pathway to wellness.
Health & Wellness Now and Ahead
This core component is included in most therapy programs but can be taken by itself as a stand alone program.
At Rites of Passage we focus on more than physical health, exercise or nutrition. Health and Wellness is the full integration of physical, mental, and spiritual wellbeing. This includes social, emotional, spiritual, environmental, occupational, intellectual, and physical wellness.
Our psychiatric team can help clients move toward holistic forms of medication and off medications entirely when appropriate. Those who must use conventional medications learn to take only what is necessary to maintain stability.
With the help of a naturopath, clients learn the foundations of nutrition, vitamins and how to eat in a healthy way. They will integrate massage, chiropractic and other alternative healing methods. The goal is to build strength and learn tools to handle the rigors of making changes in their mental states and to continue a healthy lifestyle after treatment is completed.
Health and Wellness at Rites of Passage also includes yoga, Zen meditation, hands on energy healing, nutrition and cooking, gardening, exercise, and dance.
Recovering from Trauma & PTSD
The characterization of trauma is that it is an event or experience that is more than the individual can process at the moment. Learn more about Trauma.
Trauma underlies nearly every type of unhealthy coping mechanism that people use.
As with all our program segments at Rites of Passage, this program is built to address trauma issues head-on from many different angles so that clients can process deeply and successfully build skills to cope with and finish the issues that they are working through so that they may find closure and experience life in a healthier way.
The Trauma and PTSD program ties with the equine assisted psychotherapy program and enhances trauma renegotiation. It allows clients to practice new mindsets and try out new options they might not have considered if working with people. It directly enhances all other treatment modalities being utilized in the trauma therapy program.
Communication 101
Communication 101 deals with communication skills on all levels, as well as co-dependency and healthy and unhealthy relationship patterns. Good communication can positively impact all areas of our lives from home to work situations.
Communication 101 includes a segment of Love and Logic for parents working though the program.
Communication 101 ties to the equine assisted psychotherapy program and is built around helping each client look at and practice these new skills as they let go of their old, unhealthy ways of communicating, allowing them to try new skills in a healthy nonjudgmental way until they feel safe enough to transfer the new skills to situations with other people.
Eating Disorders
"Eating disorders are serious conditions related to persistent eating behaviors that negatively impact your health, your emotions and your ability to function in important areas of life. The most common eating disorders are anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge-eating disorder. Most eating disorders involve focusing too much on your weight, body shape and food, leading to dangerous eating behaviors." (1)
Eating disorders can be caused by a variety of factors and each eating disorder is different. Rites of Passage looks at all aspects of a client's history to properly assess and address the clients disordered eating.
This program cross-trains with all other CORE program components, to help each client with disordered eating issues begin to see their own unique reason why they originally, and usually unconsciously, chose this cross-addiction as a coping mechanism.
This allows clients to begin to feel empowered and honoring of their body as well as teaching clients to work with new skill-sets to reduce anxiety and perfectionism in order to begin to allow themselves to feel better about themselves and the world around them.
This program utilizes equine assisted psychotherapy sessions to engage clients in an experiential, nonjudgmental way, to allow practicing new skills successfully without falling back into human competition or human judgmental situations.
(1) Eating disorders - Symptoms and causes - Mayo Clinic
Substance Relapse
This program utilizes spiritual, mindfulness, somatic, experiential aspects into solid skills around relapse situations. Our relapse program is not a 12 step based program.
The client has a chance to take everything that they are successfully applying in other CORE programs and add these skills into learning to prevent relapse situations. From this stronger, more skillful base, clients can deal with this unhealthy coping mechanism that has become an addiction and a trap.
Equine Assisted Psychotherapy Program works in concert with the Substance Relapse program to experientially and non-judgmentally practice new mindfulness coping skills in a healthy way.
The Heroic Journey and Heroine's Journey
The Heroic Journey is an archetypal story of travel into the unknown, passing through great challenge to transform and return 'home' with a deep connection to self and purpose.
This is an experiential program to help clients discover inner health and self-esteem. We will grow self-awareness and help build confidence in how we interact with others in the world.
The Heroic Journey and Heroine's Journey uses many therapy modalities including equine assisted psychotherapy sessions. Clients engage with horses to help learn and apply new ideas and options experientially without the fear of judgement that they have come to expect from people.
This program delves deeply into each client’s core beliefs about themselves and the world around them. It encourages letting go of unhealthy coping mechanisms so that clients can reassess and choose new, healthier ways to interact and respond to stressful situations.
Learning to be a hero of your own story is much more than just triumph over hardship, it is learning how to receive support, let go of old patterns, find inspiration and take responsibility for our lives.
Art Therapy & Self-Expression
Art therapy is another deeply internal process that is utilized in all programs within our facility. This helps clients to go more deeply into their psychological process around the work they are doing in all areas of therapy.
Art therapy uses a variety of art forms and creative techniques to help clients express their internal world and emotional experience through art. No "artistic talent" is needed for art therapy to succeed, because it is about the therapeutic process, not the artistic product.
At Rites of Passage we have a fully stocked art room available for individual work as well as group sessions.
Family Healing
This segment opens up and begins its healing work after a client has spent at least a month in the program.
Clients have a chance to work with the unhealthy communication patterns that they came into treatment with before trying out new healthy skills with family and friends.
Sessions can run weekly either in person, through Skype, or by telephone to practice new ways of interacting with the people closest to them.
Vocational Therapy & Inspiration to Engage in the World
The vocational program is an optional program.* Clients who uncover a need or desire to change career paths utilize this program.
Clients then complete a Meyers-Briggs personality test, then look at career options, college programs, and practical vocational areas of study that are in alignment with their strengths. We collaborate with tutors who are able to work with clients online or in person to build skills for college or other vocational classes when needed.
We provide help building CV's and resumes. We also help clients find opportunities to shadow successful people in the field of work they are seriously considering. This provides clients the ability to see a career in a real way so they may be sure that they want to move in that direction. This helps clients who are successfully moving forward in their lives to not fall back into old patterns when they leave the program.
*This segment is optional and not part of the base program. It is offered as a possibility and is paid for by the client individually if the client chooses to utilize tutoring services.
Connecting to Nature
As a farm-base program located next to some truly spectacular wilderness areas we are a great place to connect with nature.
Research clearly demonstrates the positive effect nature has on mental (and physical) health and well-being, and integrating a nature-based approach into treatment allows a unique and more holistic view into a client’s internal world.
We incorporate permaculture design into our farm and offer courses and hands-on work as a therapy option. Permaculture is a systematized approach to re-connecting people with the natural world through design. We seek to provide for the needs of people while simultaneously creating a regenerative influence on the natural ecologies around us.
Learn more about Ecotherapy
